Title: Un-shackled!
Author: Julie Verzani Marr-Potter
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 1622303229
Pages: 234
Genre: Parenting & Relationships
Reviewed by: Liz Konkel
Hollywood Book Reviews
Julie has the change of a lifetime when she moves from Iowa to California where she faces struggles along her journey to find God, challenges of starting a new life, the ups and downs of marriage, and various roadblocks that are thrown her way. Her journey is one she never expected with trials and experiences that shaped her which is explored through the search for faith and the road to how she found herself. As she builds a relationship, she’s swept into the world of Hollywood where she works for Disney and meets movie stars as she finds herself on sets with big named celebrities such as Johnny Carson, Sylvester Stallone, and John Travolta. The adventures of her life take her to a variety of places and she spends time with missionaries in places that include Mexico, Africa, Irian Jaya, and India, and even to Orlando where she works for Disney and with the Grand Ole Opry. Her extraordinary life is depicted in this autobiography through a grounded voice and heartfelt honesty.
This autobiography has a reflective tone as she’s looking back on her life which weaves through the changes in her life that came from moving to California where she takes a path including her religious journey, her marriage, and life in Hollywood. Each part of her journey is touched upon and set the table for her self-discovery. You see her coming of age exploration sprinkled throughout as she rises to herself as a wife, Christian, and career. She focuses on primary key aspects of her life, shining light specifically upon the obstacles in her marriage and in her life, which often found her relationship with God tested. She delivers an honest voice that doesn’t shy away from her experiences and this gives a sincerity to her journey to see to the heart of who she is which makes her story so poignant.
Photos are included throughout that gives you visual peeks at moments of her journey that allows you to see these poignant memories from the son given up for adoption to the movie she made with John Travolta. The inclusion of photos gives the autobiography a feeling of reading an album full of her memories and taking part in her experiences by creating a tone to listen and learn from. This reads as a form of introduction to her life as she makes the grand move from Iowa, gets married, and becomes a mom, building her life as a mother, a woman, and a Christian. She gives a fun look at the role she had in “Chains of Gold,” but the depth of her journey hits upon the two most important relationships in her life: her marriage and her relationship with God.
Her religious journey is at the root of her story and what keeps her grounded through every ordeal she faces which are moments she touches upon being a spiritual person in this world of Hollywood. The advice is personal and honest as she uses her own spiritual journey and experiences. Take a stroll through her life as she goes from Pasadena to Hollywood to Mexico and encounters all the people she met along the way that impacted her journey. Marr-Potter takes you along her California experience as she meets movie stars in Hollywood, missionaries in various countries, and then walk along beside her in her relationship with God in Un-shackled! which delivers a poignant message about marriage and faith.